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Bikram Vohra
JournalismPakistan.com
October 31, 2016
The problem is that the American people don’t want either of the two candidates as their president. That is the inherent danger in the two-party system. You cannot have a coalition.
There is no third choice. There is also a sneaky feeling that after a first Afro-American President, getting a first woman president back to back is far too much of breathless experimentation. It’s fine for the record books but couldn’t it wait a little?
Add to this sense of voter ennui and you have the FBI opening up the files on Hillary’s email saga and you wonder how with an incumbent from the same party sitting in the White House what happened to the system of check and balances. With ten days to go in this melodramatic election is this a fair one?
Opening an investigation so close to the big day goes against the grain totally and might elicit sympathy for Hillary as much as it might generate suspicion that they do not want another Richard Nixon at 1600 and certainly not another Watergate even before the first term gets underway.
The other scary element in the 49 to 44 point lead that Hillary has over Trump is that his sexual shenanigans have become murky water under the bridge and now there are beauty contest title holders turning him into the incarnation of the Duchess of Kent (for a touch of class) and St Teresa (for virtue).
As memory fades in the frail human mind, the undecided voter who does not want to be publicly identified as a Trump supporter but privately over his beer and hot dogs likes the man’s moxy and his ‘bring your guns to town, boy’ attitude might well in the confines of the ballot room permit that macho instinct to ‘tick’ the box.
Over this week, we should see the point spread either widening perceptibly in which case the Clintons can come back home because that will show she has not been hurt by the ill-timed FBI initiative and is pulling ahead.
If the fight gets closer and turns into a 46 to 44 or less with a 10% undecided then prejudice and racial profiles will intensify their role in the vote pattern and we will watch the Trump juggernaut gather speed as it fuels up on specific vote banks. But it is not likely to be enough to block the 270 electoral votes she needs. They are almost in the bag.
With 14 million people having already voted, Hillary, for now, is holding sway in all the important states. While early voting patterns do not always hold good as indicators it does not look like Donald has the time to catch up. Trump has to win swing states like North Carolina and Florida or the party is over and indicators show he is trailing in both.
According to a Vox survey Hillary has stayed steady in blue states plus Michigan, Wisconsin, Virginia, Colorado, Pennsylvania, and New Hampshire so really, it is almost a done deal with the odds on Hillary winning stand at 90% at this moment.
Does Trump have a rabbit left in his hat… and I don’t mean a bunny.
(The writer is a Senior Editorial Advisor of Khaleej Times and the paper’s former Editor. He has also been the Editor of Gulf News, Gulf Today, Emirates Today and Bahrain Tribune)
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